


Roads, Not Shrouds

by verdant_fire



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mortality, Old Age, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Retirement, Retirementlock, Sherlock Holmes and Bees, Spring, Sussex, ignores series 3 & 4 because that's the fictional world I prefer to live in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 12:24:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17304581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verdant_fire/pseuds/verdant_fire
Summary: He's perfectly happy to live out the rest of his life in monastic devotion, feeding John and loving John and provoking John just enough to distract him from what Sherlock did to their kitchen table.





	Roads, Not Shrouds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rachelindeed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rachelindeed/gifts).



> . . . in honor of many delightful fannish discussions about Sherlock, and now SPN. The title is a pluralized bit of a line from Pablo Neruda's poem ['Ode to Age'](https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ode-to-age/).

This morning, Sherlock lost another of the hives. He'd gone outside to find thousands of brittle, dead drones, curled up in their hexagonal cells like waxy shrouds. The meagre honey they'd left behind was dripping down the comb like old blood, slow as a funeral dirge. It's the second such hive this season.

It unsettled him, but in the compounded, complex way where this sorrow was connected to every other one, all of them overlaid like anatomical plates of his fears. So, he'd gone into the house, found John writing at his desk, and dragged him onto the sofa in the sitting room, where he buried his face against John's sternum so he could smell him and be surrounded by him while John stroked his hair. He needed that flare of belonging at the back of his brain when he got close enough to catch the smell of him, that leap of joy that said _home_.  
  
"Another hive is dead," he mumbled thickly, but John still understood him.

"I'm sorry, love," he murmured, and threaded his fingers through Sherlock's curls, a habit for which Sherlock had always had a weakness. John liked to grumble at him about his hair — it had mostly turned a sort of iron-grey, but Sherlock still had all of his, whilst John's had noticeably thinned and was nearly white now. Unlike John, Sherlock didn't mind; it was also finer and softer than his own, and he liked to feel it brushing against his shoulder in the mornings.

"It's all right," he said into John's solar plexus. "I'll manage." And he would; it wasn't the bees themselves that had left him so shaken, though losing another hive was of course vexing. It was the sense that death seemed to be everywhere he looked these days, seeping up from the ground like fog, and it was making him afraid. It was not something he cared to think of, and yet he did. Death was a wolf at the door, slavering for more flesh, and he did not want to give it.

"I know you will," John said, and held him tighter, as if he knew what Sherlock was thinking. Perhaps he did, at that. Sherlock had not missed the way John looked at him sometimes when he thought Sherlock didn't see, as if he was memorising him before the final exam. Sherlock was rather wrinkled and bony by this point in life, but John still looked at him like he had that first night, as if the mere fact of Sherlock's existence was something beautiful and miraculous. Perhaps it was, if it had led to this, to the two of them together. John had hurtled out of space like a meteor and left Sherlock a smouldering crater, sending up the smoke signals of his devotion.  
  
He cannot imagine either of them without the other, not anymore. Sometimes he still has nightmares about those long years apart from John, never knowing if he'd survive to see him again. It had taken several months of apologies and explanations and hideously uncomfortable soul-baring before John relented, but that had been one of the best days of Sherlock's life. So had the day they met, and their wedding; Mrs Hudson had cried all through their vows, and John had shone like a beacon of love, as if someone had built a lighthouse inside him. Sherlock had wanted to sail toward that light for the rest of his life, and still does.

It's just that, well.

They're not young men anymore, and they haven't been for a long time. He can't help dwelling on it at times, especially when he's forcibly reminded of the banal cruelties of age. He has to be mindful of the time he spends bent over the hives in the morning; if he stays in one position for too long, his back aches for days. His mind palace, too, is not what it once was; it would be more accurate now to call it a manor. He and John both find it difficult to sleep through the night, thanks to their deteriorating bladders. It's a challenge to maintain one's dignity when nature is bent on sabotaging it. And he worries about John, who is five years older and moving rather slower these days. His shoulder pains him badly when it rains, and he needs glasses, which he fought against for months. When he had come home wearing them, looking all prickly and puffed-up like a porcupine, Sherlock had stared, enraptured by this magnificently ferocious little creature, and John had glared back, tetchy and spoiling for a fight.

"What?" he'd growled.

"You look — "

"Bloody ancient? Like someone's grandfather?"

" — so _clever_ ," Sherlock had said, his voice dropping an octave, and John had blinked and then laughed as Sherlock all but tackled him onto the sofa, where he proceeded to give John good reason not to be upset about the glasses. Behavioural conditioning of a sort, and it had worked, too; sometimes John will wear the glasses on purpose now if it's been a while. (It's possible Sherlock may have conditioned himself as well.)

It's good, the way they are with each other; it's always been good. It still surprises him, but some days it's almost worth being old for this sort of thing, for the unconscious intimacy that comes from spending decades with someone. He and John move around each other like satellites, and they hardly have to speak to know what the other is thinking.  
  
When John's shoulder hurts, Sherlock knows precisely where to knead his fingers to work out the ache, and that it helps to keep him warm afterwards, which is an excellent inducement to curl together under the covers and nap for a bit while the bees hum a lullaby outside their window.

John, likewise, knows when Sherlock's brain is tearing itself apart and in what fashion, and can supply the proper antidote. He knows all the best walking paths near their cottage, and sometimes over-exerts Sherlock on purpose to check his lung capacity, even though he hasn't smoked in over a decade. John builds the perfect fires in the winter, ones that generate almost as much warmth as he does. It fills Sherlock with a buoyant happiness, as if his heart is a helium balloon.  
  
It's a level of closeness he never thought he'd achieve with anyone, but with John it feels as natural as — but much less boring than — breathing.

//

John's birthday is coming up. Sherlock thinks he'll get him a dog. He's seen John gaze longingly at people's pet dogs whenever they go into town, and he's ascertained by careful questioning that John had an English bulldog as a boy that he doted on, but he'd had to give it up when his family moved houses. Sherlock has no doubt that even a small John would have been stoic and dry-eyed about it, but he would have missed his dog terribly. Sherlock wants to make it up to him. Wants to make everything up to him, in fact, but since that's sadly impossible, perhaps a dog will do. He's found a breeder not far from here, so now he just has to provide a diversion for John. He and Harry haven't gone to lunch in some time, so that should work.

Distraction thus settled, when John leaves for lunch the next day, Sherlock goes to pick out a puppy. They're quite ugly, really, but one of them, a squat little flat-faced blue merle puppy, keeps trying to climb over its siblings to see him, even though its eyes are barely open. It raises its wobbly head and yips feebly at him. It's determined and stubborn, and Sherlock picks it up and finds himself smiling.

"This one, I think," he says to the breeder, Ian, who smiles back.

"Aye, he's a good 'un. You'll have to wait a bit longer for him to be weaned, I'm afraid."

"That's fine," Sherlock replies, and fills out the paperwork. He'll bring John back here when his dog is ready to go home with them. In the meantime, he can move his chemicals to the higher cabinets.

//

Sherlock's remaining bees work alongside him and keep busy, as bees do. He finds comfort in tending to them, and still more in tending to John. Sherlock smokes the hives and harvests the honey, thick and golden with promise, and feeds it to John, anoints him with it in bed. What they do there is much slower than in the days of their youth, not so much a combustion as a steady hearth fire, the warmth of home and love and John, summoning blood from the depths of him to burn his cheeks and heart and belly. Sherlock gently smoothes out every wrinkle like a sacred scroll, reverent in his worship, and kisses all of them, holy relics of the fact that John chose him, has stayed with him against all odds and, arguably, against common sense.

It's more than just bodies, when they're together this way; it's something else entirely. He can feel every tiny quivering movement of John's frame where he's pressed against him, and it's as if Sherlock doesn't fully exist until John touches him solid with his hands and speaks him into existence with his mouth, offering up little gasping breaths and hitched moans against Sherlock's skin.

Grateful, Sherlock nestles into the join between John's shoulder and neck and feathers a kiss there, moving up to bite gently at the line of his jaw and the salt-sweet taste of his skin, while the sky outside goes blue as crushed velvet. He wants to feel the honey-slow crawl of time when John looks at him, wants to be burnt black as censer ash by the immolating, summer-sultry heat of his mouth. He wants to hear John's murmuring voice resonate through Sherlock's cloistered empty spaces, to see John's body rising up to meet him as a supplicant, begging Sherlock to anchor him down to their bed. All the vaulted arches of him are beautiful, from his lowest ribs to the tips of his eyelashes. He's a cathedral, a Gothic masterpiece, with Sherlock's name consecrated on his tongue like the Host on an altar. Sherlock wants to light every one of his nerve endings like votive candles. He wants to run his fingers along every one of John's ribs like he's walking through pews. He longs for the praise that falls from John's lips more than any priestly blessing.  
  
It's the only church he's gone to in ages, but he holds it no less sacred for that.  
  
//  
  
Spring arrives like an allied army. Wildflowers are massing in pinks and golds on the Downs, and the wisteria in their garden is climbing its trellis with florid determination. The orange trees are in bloom, and the honey this year will be the best yet. John will love it, will use it to make the honey cakes Sherlock covets, and will give him even more coveted praise for harvesting it.

It all makes him feel young again, even though this is nothing like London, nothing like the fevered, fanatical loneliness of his youth. Spring here always puts an extra bounce in John's step; he straightens into parade rest when he sees the lush verdure advancing up over the Downs, as if he's waiting for marching orders from Persephone. Sherlock wonders if John likes pomegranates. He should know that by now, probably, but it's never come up. Then again, there are always new things to discover; it never fails to please him, the bottomless paradox of John. Even after all these years, the depths of him are still a beloved mystery. It's almost a sacrament, the learning of new John-facts. The way he feels for John is the closest he's come to an experience of the numinous: it frees him, occasionally, from the prison of the self. But he has no desire for converts in the traditional sense; his blogger is not for sharing. He's perfectly happy to live out the rest of his life in monastic devotion, feeding John and loving John and provoking John just enough to distract him from what Sherlock did to their kitchen table. He would never have thought this would be enough, but then, his younger self had been significantly stupider in many ways. John is the crowning mystery of Sherlock's life — a perfect ten, arguably unsolvable but worth every single second spent in the attempt.

//

For John's birthday, Sherlock makes him tea with his favourite orange blossom honey, cooks him breakfast, and gently kisses him awake.

"Happy birthday, John."

John grins at him and stretches, his joints audibly popping. "Mmm, thank you. Are you my present?"

Sherlock grins back. "Not until later. I made you breakfast."

"Ah, thank you. That's lovely." John heaves himself up, and Sherlock gives him a gentle assisting push. John toddles into the bathroom, and Sherlock takes a moment to appreciate the way the sun glints off of John's hair like freshly fallen snow. (He tried calculating the albedo once, but got distracted by the sea-deep blue of John's eyes and the glitter of his stubble in the morning light.)  
  
Downstairs, Sherlock sets the table while John takes a shower. When John returns, he's wearing the cobalt button-up that brings out his eyes. He saves it for days when he's feeling particularly affectionate toward Sherlock, so the morning is off to an excellent start.

"If you're feeling up to it," Sherlock ventures, "I thought we could go for a walk into town today, perhaps have lunch and visit a few of the shops."

"Yeah, that sounds nice," John replies, eyes shining, and tucks in to his food while Sherlock watches, pleased. In rather a role reversal, John's appetite isn't what it used to be, so occasionally it's Sherlock who has to remind John to eat.

"Not joining me?" John says wryly. Sherlock blinks and then steals one of John's jars of jam to spread on his toast.

They eat in companionable silence and then stroll into town holding hands. John glances up at him through his eyelashes, mischievous and fond. The corner of Sherlock's mouth tips up. John is even shorter now than he used to be, though Sherlock knows better than to tease him about it. John may be small and wrinkled and a bit stooped, but Sherlock still finds him lovely to look at and touch and share his life with. He bends down to kiss the top of John's head, for no reason other than to feel the heat of his scalp and to smell the John-ness of his hair.

"What was that for?" John looks up at him, and his eyes are smiling.

"Nothing. And everything," Sherlock says, and tangles their fingers together.

They wander around the town centre for a bit, popping in and out of antique shops and bookstores, until it's time for lunch. They've found a small Italian place they like, and while it's not Angelo's, it does an excellent pesto tagliatelle, and its tiramisu is divine. He lets John order for them, though Sherlock adds on a bottle of wine for the occasion and requests a candle. It's their tradition, and it always makes John smile to see it.

When their wine comes, he fills their glasses and raises his in a toast. "To many more years together," he says, and John lifts his glass.

"Hear, hear."

Their food is delicious, as usual, and after he's paid, he takes John's hand again and leads him down the lane. "And now, for your present — the first one, anyway," he teases, and John laughs.

Happily, since they're both full and sluggish from lunch, it's only a brief walk to Ian's house, and Sherlock tries to enjoy it, to be here and now without worrying about the future. He's only partially successful, but when John squeezes his hand and smiles at him, it's hard to be elsewhere.

"We're here," Sherlock announces a few minutes later, and holds the door open for John. John cocks his head at him, curious, and goes inside. Sherlock, as ever, follows him.

"Ah, Mr Holmes!" Ian greets him, and stands to shake his hand.

"Hello, Ian. This is my husband, John." He will never get tired of saying those words; they give him a deathless thrill every time. "We're here to pick up his birthday present."

"Lovely! If you'll just follow me, then." Sherlock puts a hand on the small of John's back to lead him along into the kennel room. He makes sure to stay slightly in front of John, so that he can see his face when John realises where this is going. When he sees the puppies, John goes very still under Sherlock's palm.

"Sherlock, did you . . . buy me a puppy?"

"Yes, John." A terrible thought occurs. "Did you not want — "

"No, I did! I do," John reassures him, and Sherlock feels his shoulders relax. "I was just surprised, that's all."

"Well then," Sherlock says, "go and meet your present." Ian has the puppy in his broad palms, and he transfers the wrinkly little thing over to John and leaves them to get acquainted. John cradles it against his chest with an utterly besotted look on his face, and the puppy burrows blissfully into John's shirtfront. Sherlock feels an irritable spike of jealousy. Almost immediately, John chuckles at him, even though Sherlock hadn't thought he was looking.

"There's no need to make that face, love," John says, still cradling the puppy. "No one could ever replace you, you know."

"I should hope not," Sherlock sniffs, but he knows John can tell he's mollified. "You'll have to be the one to take care of it, you know. I'm not good at that sort of thing," he says, suddenly a bit nervous.

"I know, though I beg to differ."

"I mean — that you'll have to stick around to take care of it. The dog. Just the dog, of course, no one else. You'll have to stick around for a good while longer, John. Years and years yet. I'm sure it will be a very long-lived dog." He's babbling, he knows, but it's hardly the first time.

"Sherlock," John whispers, and his eyes are suspiciously shiny. Sherlock can't stop looking at him, even though he can feel himself blushing. "I intend to, yeah?" John says gently, and reaches out to take his hand. "I plan to stick around for a very long while yet. I wouldn't want to leave my — dog — to be taken care of by anyone else. But I'm afraid you'll have to stick around too. To help with the dog, of course."

"I suppose that would be acceptable," Sherlock murmurs. He feels like a small child, afraid of the dark and glad to be comforted. "If you promise, that is. Do you promise?" His voice has grown thready, but then, so has John's.

John sets the puppy down on its kennel bed so that he can cup Sherlock's face in his hands. "I promise," he says, and kisses him.

//

Spring waxes into summer, and John's puppy grows round and rambunctious along with it. John putters endearingly around their cosy cottage, filled with monographs and memories, while the dog trundles along at John's heels. John names it Gladstone, and babies it ludicrously.

The three of them work on the garden together, weeding and pruning and coaxing it further into bloom until it's fragrant and vital, a feast for the eyes and for the bees. Sherlock gets freckles from being out in the sun, and John counts and tends them with the same care Sherlock gives to his bees. It's good and it's now and it's everything Sherlock would've never thought to hope for. It may be the twilight of their lives together, but it's no less beautiful for that.  
  
John has stayed, all this time; John will stay until the end, and maybe even after that. He's promised as much, many times and in so many different ways. John will wait for him in the next life, if there is one, just as Sherlock will wait for him if he goes first. They'll set sail into the radiant unknown together. If death is the undiscovered country, Sherlock refuses to chart it without John by his side.  
  
Someday far too soon, they'll die, and be interred in the same urn: what's left of John transmuted into beloved ash, commingled irreversibly with what's left of Sherlock, forever and ever amen. Someday, they'll be gone — but for now, and later, and for all of the shining times before, Sherlock will give thanks.

Sherlock will rejoice.

 

**Author's Note:**

> While it may not need saying, please don't gift pets to people unless they actually ask for them. Rebloggable on [Tumblr](https://viridiandecisions.tumblr.com/post/181733435632/roads-not-shrouds-verdantfire-sherlock-tv) and [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/posts/399630) if you're into that!


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